Adam’s Top 10 Magnus Archives Episodes

My History With The Magnus Archives and why I love it so much

Fear I would be an Avatar of: Eye

Fear I’m most susceptible to: Flesh/Corruption

My dalliance with The Magnus Archives began in 2020. My sister and I, fed up of being shut in our house, decided we were going to start driving aimlessly around in my car. We called it div, and our divs would mostly occurr late at night and some time into these routine drives we decided to start the monumental task of listening to TMA. We got episode 12 and then we stopped because we were scaring ourselves.

We returned to it around 2022 and began listening properly. My sister, Nat, would barge into my room and demand ‘Magnyoomus’ and off we would go on our late night drives listening to TMA. It brought us closer together and I will always be thankful for that. I fully caught up on Protocol this morning and instantly texted her all of my theories, and she told me hers. We also decided a little while ago we were going to get Magnus related tattoos, sibling style.

Although, more than bringing me closer to my sister, The Magnus Archives helped me understand and come to terms with my own fear. I could get on the tube in London and say to myself that I wasn’t going to give the Buried my fear to feed on, I wasn’t going to feed the Stranger with my hallucinations, etc. It also inspired and will become instrumental in my PhD.

Series 1 (MAG 1-40)

MAG 5 Thrown Away

Fear: Spiral

God damn I love a mislead.

When I looked back on earlier statements after finishing the series to categorise them by fear, I always filed this episode away in my mind as unmarked. The doll heads screamed Stranger and then the teeth were giving Flesh and the prayer pages seemed kind of Web themed, but it was always one that held a special place in my heart. I think it was because of the bin bag full of teeth, it was just so out of left field.

There are objectively more interesting statements in series one that more clearly represent their attached fear, and looking back on the episodes after listening to MAG 111 – Family Business or finishing the series it’s very easy to neatly categorise most statements (such as MAG 36 Taken Ill or MAG 21 Freefall) but Thrown Away is… harder. When trying to categorise this statement I thought about it for a long time, and it was only last year when my sister and I were talking about it that we managed to figure out it was a Spiral statement. An episode so Spiral you don’t even know it’s Spiral, brilliant.

Spiral adjacent book
- Emmanuel Carrère – The Moustache

MAG 34 Anatomy Class

Fear: Stranger

I don’t know why but I’ve always been a sucker for mimics in horror stories, so when Anatomy Class turned out to be inhuman things learning to be human but are not at all subtle or good at it I instantly knew it was going to be one of my favourites. ‘How sharp are the knees meant to be?’ amaze amaze!

The apple full of teeth was perhaps my favourite part of this episode, but there’s a lot to be said for the lab where they pump dissected hearts full of blood, and the sounds of them growing and warping their own bones to match their given cadaver when learning about the skeleton; ending up taller at the end of the lesson than they were at the beginning, fantastic. And where better to learn how to pass as a human than a medical college? Very smart move by the Stranger there.

Stranger adjacent book
- Felix Blackwell – Stolen Tongues

Series 2 (MAG 41-80)

MAG 47 The New Door

Fear: Spiral

I see the House of Leaves reference in this episode, Jonny Sims is not as slick as he thinks, no one can hide non-euclidean geometry from me I will sniff it out.

I love the description of the Distortion’s hallways in its domain and how rattled and directionless it left Helen after she had been trapped in there. I also love the description of the Distortion itself, sharp hands, bent at odd angles, impossibly tall, love it! This was one of the episodes I listened to while setting up sessions early in the morning at work when I was the only one working that day. I think I was setting up the archery range during this one. Being all on my own in the woods really added some good atmosphere to the ‘I am not a who Archivist.’ spiel. Luke Booys does a fantastic performance as Michael and the way the tape screams when the Distortion is there is a fantastic little detail that my sister-in-law picked up on when she, myself, and my sister listened to the episode together.

Spiral adjacent book
- Mark Z. Danielewski – House of Leaves
Spiral adjacent content
- Powerpak – MyHouse.Wad

MAG 78 Distant Cousin

Fear: Stranger

As I said, my favourite horror element has always been mimics, things that aren’t human and are doing a really shit job of pretending to be human will always rank in my top 10, and what I absolutely adore about the Not Them is that it knows it looks nothing like the person it just feasted on, it gets everything wrong and it is just so proud of itself. It’s also accompanied by the appearance of my boy Adelard Dekker which is always gonna be a good awesome time.

This episode also features Jon finally seeing that the Not Them has taken Sasha and he counters the Not Them’s voice saying ‘I see you.’ on the tape with his own ominous as fuck ‘and now I see you.’ which chilled me to my bones when I first heard it. I have a good grasp on voice recognition so I was one of the people who realised Sasha’s voice actor had been swapped out at the end of series 1. By that point I was onto Alex and Jonny, I knew their game, if Sasha had changed voice actors that meant something. She was not Sasha anymore.

This episode also has Jon saying ‘it’s remarkably easy to buy an axe in Central London.’ which really was just the cherry on top of perfection for me in this episode, along with Michael and his little cameo.

Rest in peace Sasha, I miss you every day.

Stranger adjacent book
- Peter Watts – Blindsight

Series 3 (MAG 81-120)

MAG 85 Upon the Stair

Fear: Spiral

Man on steps!

This episode has a very fond little place in my heart because of how much my sister and I built it up for my sister-in-law as we approached it on our Magnyoomuses. We would constantly look at each other and say ‘hey, I met a man upon the stair.’ and the other would reply with ‘a man who wasn’t there.’ It was a great little game of call and response and my sister-in-law loved the episode so much, and we kept calling the episode man on steps, it was great. We love a man upon the stair, a man who wasn’t there.

Spiral adjacent book
- QNTM – There is No Antimemetics Division

MAG 93 Corruption

Fear: Corruption

You would think that having contamination OCD, and being susceptible to the Corruption, I would keep its episodes out of this list, but there’s something about Contaminant that tickles my brain just right. You gotta love a sentient fungus spreading throughout the house hellbent on making sure your day sucks butt. I think I love this episode so much because it freaks me out and gets under my skin, it makes me want to clean my house from the drains outwards and it has Breekon and Hope zooming around in their van of horrors! I often find that the episodes I really love are the ones that have a strong effect on me, as is usually the case with horror.

Corruption adjacent book
- Andrew Joseph White – You Weren’t Meant to be Human

Series 4 (MAG 121-160)

MAG 125 Civilian Casualties

Fear: Slaughter

This is another one of those episodes that has a special place in my heart because of when I listened to it. I was at work, it was around 8AM and it was Autumn—I love Autumn so we’re already starting off in good territory—it was foggy, and across from the climbing tower over on the other side of the main road there’s a field, and that morning the sheep had been put out. I was setting up the abseil and as the statement cam to a close I paused my setup and just leaned on the edge of the tower staring at the sheep.

The Slaughter also has a special place in my heart because it’s the fear one of my most beloved characters would be an avatar of.

Slaughter adjacent book
- John Hall – Homecoming Queen

MAG 148 Extended Surveillance

Fear: Eye

The eye doesn’t have many episodes but god damn this is a good one. I also wonder if that operations pamphlet was an unmarked Leitner. Either way, you gotta love security cameras becoming actual eyeballs and eating a guy. This episode has a very modest level of paranoia related crachouts and I think it really benefits from that.

Eye Adjacent Book
- Uketsu – Strange Houses

Series 5 (MAG 161-200)

MAG 164 The Sick Village

Fear: Corruption

And here we are. The eyepocalypse.

Again, I’m susceptible to the Corruption but one of its episodes is on my list again. I grew up mostly with my grandparents in a village where everyone knew each other so maybe this would be my domain in the eyepocalypse where I suffer from the terror of being found to be sick. I also love horror set in small towns that are just plain wrong and the paranoia of the villagers is just fantastic.

Corruption adjacent book
- Naben Ruthnum – Helpmeet

MAG 177 Wonderland

Fear: Spiral

This is what I like to call my reset episode. It drills down so effectively into all of my anxieties and inner shortcomings it shocks me out of episodes of numbness. If I feel numb, I’m not reacting or feeling emotions strongly and I don’t find joy in any of my usually favourite hobbies, I put this episode on (or MAGP 25 Gut Feelings) and it shocks me out of it. I think the one that really gets me is the concept of ‘yeah, your mental illnesses are all real and everyone Does hate you.’ As I said, the usual way with horror is that the thing that affects you most often becomes what you’re most fond of.

Spiral adjacent book
- Ben Farthing – I Found Puppets Living in My Apartment Walls

Honourable Mentions, Animatics, and Adjacent Content

MAG 103 – Cruelty Free

Fear: Flesh

Man, I love that massive unkillable pig, and I love that it thinks the farmer is its friend. Poor little piggos though 🙁

MAG 150 – Cul-de-Sac

Fear: Lonely

Originally this was in the series 4 section but I replaced it with Civilian Casualties because I think it’s a better expression of the Slaughter than Cul-de-Sac is of the Lonely, as it has Vast elements which tend to confuse the categories, but it reminds me of one of my own projects and it has a very similar feel to the 2019 film Vivarium, so I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it.

MAG 156 – Reflection

Fear: Extinction

Adelard Dekker is here and I welcome him. I love the idea of a mirror world ruled by starvation, and it again reminds me of MyHouse.Wad, in the later half of the mod where the player is invited into the filled bath or the mirror world that contains an exact copy of the normal world.

MAG 178 – The Processing Line

Fear: Flesh

The Flesh has discovered bureaucracy. This one is a really creative way of simulating a human slaughterhouse; it acts as a fantastic callback to MAG 30 – Killing Floor, And the emphasis being on absolutely none of the statement person being usable for any purpose cuts so deep. Also, if you loved the background pig, slicing, and machinery noises, I highly recommend you check out the Dark Somnium’s reading of Burgrr Entries.